This Is You Now
by ainsleyhayes
Summary: This is who you are now. 1 of 1, S3


Title: This Is You Now  
  
Author: neumy  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: She isn't the woman you remember her to be, but she is you.  
  
Timeline: Post Reunion, but nothing specific  
  
Spoilers: Up to Reunion (Season 3)  
  
Author's Note: First off, I just want to say that this is sort of a big fic for me. It's really personal, and I invested a lot into it. Things haven't been all too great lately, so I used this as an outlet for all of that. I really hope you enjoy it. Big thanks to Duck for reading this and giving me a wonderfully kind opinion. *hug* Thanks!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias.  
  
**************************************  
  
It's a new world now.  
  
New buildings, new people, new principles. New street signs, new houses, new everything.  
  
New you.  
  
Everything is different for you now. Your father is finally the man you always dreamed he would be, loving and caring. The friends you knew and loved are as good as dead; there will never be another chance to have deep conversation or simple moments of comfortable silence. They'll never know how much you cherished each one. The love of your life now goes home to someone else each night, holds another woman in his arms.  
  
Everything is different.  
  
You look around you, taking in the bare walls of your new apartment, gazing at the boxes around your feet. The kitchen is bare; your new room is sparse and mundane, lacking any personality. You decide that you like it, like the detached air of it all. It matches your demeanor perfectly, cold and disconnected.  
  
Every day, it gets harder and harder to look at yourself in the mirror. You don't recognize the face of the woman staring back at you; she is a stranger in this place, a dreamed up figment of someone's sick imagination.  
  
That's who she has to be. Because amidst all of the chaos, you hold to one thing.  
  
She isn't you.  
  
Her eyes are darker, colder than you remember yours ever being. Her eyes are hollow, lifeless, a deep vast abyss of emptiness. There is no happy smile on this woman's face; she is as cold as stone, hard as iron. You remember your smile that could light up a room; a smile that could light up his heart. This woman has no life, no light.  
  
She won't light up anyone's face.  
  
She won't make anyone happy.  
  
You always believed in some redemption for the world. There was always a glimmer of hope for salvation. There is no hope in the woman you see in the mirror. There isn't even a dim spark, a muted flame. There is nothing there; she is vacant, left with nothing but a disdainful skepticism and lack of trust. Indifferent, cynical, unfeeling. this woman can't be you.  
  
She's too different, so different. Her eyes, her smile, her expression; it's so different than what you remember yours to be.  
  
And so you know that this isn't really you. It can't be you.  
  
You avoid looking in mirrors.  
  
For you, each day is harder than the next. You're forced to be in a place you detest with strangers who have heard your legacy but will never know the whole truth.  
  
Every day, you have to be in a building that is like a prison; each time you close the door behind you, the cellblock gate is slammed with more force, becoming harder and harder to open as each day passes, locking you into this life.  
  
And he's the one that's slamming the door.  
  
You wish it wasn't the case; you know that he doesn't realize how much he affects you. But it's how things are, and they won't change. Not for you. Not now.  
  
Being around him each day is both a curse and a blessing; it kills you to see him with her, to see him act with her like he did with you. It drills through the already wide hole in your heart, leaving an even bigger void there. You want to hate him, want to hate what he's doing to you.  
  
But you still love him. An ocean of pain and tears and longing separates you, but you love him just as much as you did before all of this. This is the blessing he gives you; he gives you the will to live. You can't have him, but you can still feel his presence all around you, and you'll take whatever you can get.  
  
This is what you live each day. This is your life now.  
  
The nights you live through give you more pain than anything else. The nights you live through slowly draw the life out of you, slowly kill you. The nights you live through are a slideshow of what you had, and for a few fleeting moments in time, you are happy.  
  
But moments aren't lifetimes. They don't last forever. Moments are only moments, and when they're done, you're left with nothing.  
  
The moment is over when the dawn comes, and everything is ripped away.  
  
They told you that nightmares would come to you, hover in your mind like a dark shroud and make you cry out for mercy. They told you that the nightmares would haunt you like a plague, only damaging you more.  
  
But they don't know you.  
  
You cry yourself to sleep each night as you imagine they do, too, sobbing until there are no tears left. Releasing everything you have until all that's left is bitter, mind-numbing pain.  
  
But you're different from them. The nightmares don't scare you, don't make you relive the hell you've been through.  
  
The nightmares you have are bliss.  
  
Nightmares reminding you of the beauty that was the two of you together, two entities fused into one. His face, in front of yours, so close so close that you can't resist closing the distance; his lips, invading yours, claiming every inch of you as his own, burning your skin with their soft loving fire; his hands, through your hair, on your hips, all over you, marking you with each agonizingly beautiful touch; his long fingers, threading with yours and gripping them almost painfully tight, never letting you go; his body, pulling you in deeper and deeper, closer, feeling him all around you on top of you inside of you.  
  
These are the images that haunt you. The moments of passion, of fire, of love. These are what make you cry for mercy. Because dreams don't last forever. Dreams can't last forever.  
  
Eventually, you wake up. This is the part that makes it a nightmare. This is the part that begins the nightmare that you call your new life.  
  
Eventually, you wake up, and he isn't there anymore. There will be no more of those moments made, no more events that will lead to pleasant dreams.  
  
All you have are the dreams now. Sleep is a blessing for you, because it lets you have your love like you want him. It lets you have him the way he was, yours and yours alone. Sleep gives you peace and serenity.  
  
The time you spend awake is the nightmare.  
  
But you live each day, because the time you spend dreaming of him, dreaming of the two of you together, keeps you whole. You are like a fragile glass vase shattered on the floor, glued back together with cheap paste. You've been broken, ruined, and the only thing holding you together are the dreams you have each night.  
  
Days pass, crawling along at a snail's pace. You can't focus, can't concentrate; this isn't the life you want. You're sick of being the object of everyone's pity, the juicy piece of gossip around the office.  
  
You don't want this life.  
  
You feel like a fragile glass vase. You could break at any time.  
  
You sit in your bland room, the simple walls and basic furnishings of the room reflecting you perfectly. You're just a face now, just a hollow body going through the motions each day. Bare and plain, lifeless and dull.  
  
Your eyes catch on the face sitting in the mirror that hangs above your dresser. You force yourself to look at her, look at the reflection in the mirror. You force yourself to see that it is you. This is you now.  
  
She isn't the woman you remember her to be, but she is you. This is who you are now. Dark, cold eyes. Sober, hard face. No hope, no light.  
  
This is you now.  
  
You look in the mirror and see what you are. You look in the mirror and see what you've become, what this has made you.  
  
A tear slips from your eye, then another, and another. Soon, the cycle starts again, and you cry yourself to sleep, exhausted as emotion after emotion washes over you. You drift off, out of this world, out of this hell, and into a place where things are better.  
  
Now you are safe. No one can touch you here, not in your dreams. Not when you're with him. You feel him everywhere. Protecting you; encompassing you; loving you.  
  
You feel him here, and you are happy.  
  
There are no mirrors here, and you see yourself as you were, as you want to be.  
  
Eventually you will wake up. Soon, you'll have to go back to the world that is a nightmare.  
  
But not now.  
  
Not yet.  
  
So you hold onto the time you have like it's a life preserver and you're floating in the ocean. You take the time for all you can get.  
  
You do everything you can to hold on to him.  
  
You dream.  
  
************************************  
  
Thanks for reading. 


End file.
